


play for me a simple melody

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 08:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>won't you play a simple melody/ just like my mother sang to me/ one with good old fashioned harmony/ why don't you play a simple melody</p><p> </p><p>It all goes to hell on a regular Tuesday morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	play for me a simple melody

**Author's Note:**

> Title and Summary taken from Irving Berlin's Play a Simple Melody

It all goes to hell on a regular Tuesday morning.

He woke up, showered and shaved, and came downstairs to find Sherlock asleep on the sofa. He supressed a fond smile and took the afghan Mrs. Hudson had knitted last year and draped it over his slumbering flatmate. 

John had perfected the art of making tea and toast in near silence years ago. It was hard enough to coax Sherlock into believing he was a normal human who needed sleep, and he wouldn’t ruin his hard work with clinking mugs. 

John was debating whether or not to write up the case they had wrapped a few days ago when his phone vibrated on the table.

“John Watson,” he said, his voice low as he walked into the hall.

“Hi John, it’s Joe.”

“Joe! How are you? How’s Amy?”

“She’s great. John, do you remember when you came in a couple days ago to get your rib looked at?” he asked.

“You said it was just bruised,” John replied.

“It was, it’s just I noticed something on the imaging we got done and I was wondering if you could come in.”

“It’s nothing serious is it?” John asked. 

“It’s probably nothing, just making sure. You know how it is.”

John forced a laugh. “Yeah. I can be down there in a couple hours, is that okay?”

“That’d be great John.”

John hung up and leaned against the door. He took a deep breath and prayed that Joe was right and it wasn’t anything serious.

 

John bounced his knee as he sat waiting in Joe’s office. He looked around, trying to take his mind off the impending biopsy results. He took in the degrees and pictures on the walls, the slightly messy pile of papers on the desk. This could have easily been John’s life. He could have been this, an 8 hour work day, going home to a wife a couple kids. Instead he chased after criminals at all hours of the day and night and went home to a mad flatmate whose experiments cluttered the table and who shot at the wall when he was bored. John couldn’t help but be grateful.

The door opened, taking John away from his musings. His heart sank as soon as he saw the expression on Joe’s face. The carefully neutral expression John had worn countless times when telling patients bad news. 

“How bad is it?” John asked, his voice barely shaking.

“John,” Joe started, his voice a mixture of pity and sympathy.

“I’m a doctor Joe. Just tell me how bad it is.”

“The tumour is malignant. Pancreatic cancer is hard to catch early, and the biopsy told us that it’s stage IV. It’s metastasized in your liver, your lungs and your brain. You have months John, if that.”

For a moment, for a single moment, everything faded away and John was oddly reminded of the time he had fallen out of a tree. He had barely been nine, and Harry had goaded him into climbing the giant oak that had grown in their front garden. He had almost made it to the top when he had lost his footing and fallen. The fall had seemed to take forever, when it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. But it had felt like ages for John. When he had hit the ground, he had broken his arm in two places. For months afterwards, he had had nightmares of falling, of the wind roaring in his ears and the ground growing steadily closer and terror gripping his heart. Sitting in that office, being told that he had maybe months to live, John felt like he was nine years old and falling out of a tree.

 

Sherlock almost hated to wake him up. John was always tired, the cancer slowly eating away at his energy. But it was 3:00pm, so Sherlock gently shook John’s shoulder, trying to ignore how bony it was, how thin he had gotten in the last month.

“’M tired Sh’lock,” John muttered.

“It’s three o’clock. You need to take your medication.”

“Why bother? It’s not like skipping a dose will kill me. ‘M already dying.”

“John,” Sherlock said sharply.

“Fine,” he sighed, struggling to get up. Sherlock wordlessly helped him sit up, ignoring the way John flinched at his touch.

“How are you feeling?” Sherlock asked as he handed John the cocktail of pills he was supposed to take.

“Like I have terminal cancer.”

Sherlock just gave him a look, and John rolled him eyes. 

“Fine,” John ground out. “I feel nauseated and my head hurts and I’m a bit cold.”

Sherlock fetched the afghan that was draped on his chair and spread it over John.

“Better?” he asked.

John nodded.

As Sherlock turned to leave, John called out. “Would you mind playing for a little?”

Sherlock almost said no. He almost ran away and hid in his room, desperate to get away from the shadow of the man he had known. But instead Sherlock nodded and silently took his violin, placing it under his chin. As he drew his bow across the strings, he closed his eyes. Coaxing out the notes, filling the room with Vivaldi and Brahms and Rachmaninoff, he could almost pretend that everything was alright.

 

Sherlock hated the beeping of the machines. He hated them almost as much as he desperately didn’t want them to stop. They told him that John was still alive. They assured him that for the next moment his world would still be whole.

“Sherlock?” John called quietly.

“Yes John?”

“I think I’m going to die.”

Sherlock inhaled sharply, turning away from the heart monitor to face John lying in his hospital bed. “I know,” Sherlock confessed quietly.

“How could I forget? You know everything,” John said, his laughter turning into a hacking cough. 

Sherlock almost didn’t say it. If he didn’t say it, then John could die with one less regret, maybe even at peace. But Sherlock was a selfish creature, he needed John to know. He needed it almost as much as he needed John to stay alive.

“I love you,” Sherlock confessed.

“I know.” 

“You do?” 

“Of course I do you twat. After these last months, doing all that you did-“

“I’ve loved you for years,” Sherlock interrupted. “Before all this.”

“I love you too Sherlock, for all that it’s worth.”

Sherlock wanted to tell him that it was worth a lot; that it was worth everything. He wanted to tell John that he had no idea how he was going to keep on living, that John lit up his world and he was terrified that everything would be dark if John died. But if the past months had taught Sherlock anything, it was that sometimes there wasn’t enough time to say what one wanted to say. So instead he leaned over the rail and kissed John.

John’s lips were dry, and his cannula dug into Sherlock’s skin. He was so weak that he could barely kiss Sherlock back. It was the best kiss Sherlock had ever experienced. He broke the kiss after a few moments and rested his forehead against John’s.

“I’m not ready,” John whispered, his voice small and terrified. “I don’t want to die.”

Sherlock had no response, no words of comfort. He kissed John’s eyelids, his cheeks and the corner of his mouth and his forehead.

“Play for me Sherlock,” John rasped.

So Sherlock played. He played all of John’s favourites. He played songs he hadn’t played in years, songs from his childhood, original compositions and half-finished melodies. He played for hours until his arms ached and he played over the sound of the heart monitor failing to register a heartbeat. He played as tears ran down his face, he poured the terrible ache in his heart into his music.

When he stopped his arms were sore and his cheeks were wet. He put down the violin and took John’s cold hand in his. He knew he would never pick his violin up again, just as he knew his heart would never be whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry if I got anything about John's illness wrong. Reviews are appreciated.


End file.
